Nice piece on animals and regret

I’ve heard a lot of people say that to ascribe the capacity for regret to animals is anthropomorphizing. My response is always you clearly haven’t spent much time with animals. What animals do goes way, way beyond human projections, and they have, among other things, a fully developed language for acknowledging wrongdoing and considering missed opportunities.

It’s our human words, and our ways of talking about it, that get factually sketchy – but also funny.

Here’s a nice piece in the NYT that has both the humility to look at what they actually do, and the humor to spin it through our human culture (without forgetting that they have cultures of their own):

Yet as new reports keep appearing — moping coyotes, rueful monkeys, tigers that cover their eyes in remorse, chimpanzees that second-guess their choices — the more I wonder if animals do indulge in a little paw-wringing.

Your dog may not share Hamlet’s dithering melancholia, but he might have something in common with Woody Allen.

Gilgamesh's mother was a Dalmatian and his father was a god. He is an athlete, a comedian, a quantum physicist, and is under consideration for both a Nobel Peace Prize and an Emmy Award. His current project is hacking into NASA while swimming the English Channel. He is prone to hyperbole. He is also starving to death and has never been given a treat in his whole life.
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If you'd like to enter the frenzied bidding war over the rights to his memoirs - which are engraved on stone tablets - email us at gilgablog (at) gmail (dot) com.
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If you don't know where the name Gilgamesh comes from, you should read this right away.
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Gilly came from the Thomas J. O'Connor Animal Control and Adoption Center when he was a 7 week old lump closely resembling a thoroughly-chewed kalamata olive pit. He was one of 10 puppies whose pregnant mother was tied to a lamp-post and abandoned. Please spay and neuter, and adopt homeless animals. And please: send shelter or rescue organizations money, volunteer, or call to see if there's anything else you can do. They need your help.
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Welcome and enjoy.